MHRA Funds Four New Regulatory Science Centres

MHRA, the Medical Research Council and the Office for Life Sciences have opened a £20 million funding call to establish four new Centres of Excellence for Regulatory Science and Innovation — UK hubs meant to pair academic and industry research with the regulator's own priorities, ahead of the decisions those priorities will eventually shape. The call, announced 22 September 2026, follows an earlier seven-centre pilot network and moves the programme from short seed grants to fewer, longer-funded centres.

What a CERSI is meant to do

A Centre of Excellence for Regulatory Science and Innovation is a joint venture between academic researchers, industry and the regulator itself, built to develop the evidence base, methods and tools that future regulatory decisions will draw on — work on emerging technologies and novel evaluation approaches that neither a university department nor MHRA alone is well placed to run. The model borrows its name and structure from FDA's longer-running CERSI network in the US, which has funded similar academic-regulator partnerships for over a decade.

A second phase, not a first attempt

This is not the UK's first run at the model. MHRA, the MRC, the OLS and Innovate UK previously ran a CERSI pilot that funded seven centres with roughly £6.2 million in one-year seed funding, drawn from a wider field of 17 networks that had entered an initial discovery phase. The new £20 million call scales that pilot into a second, more durable phase: fewer centres — four rather than seven — but funded for up to five years rather than one, a shift from seeding many small efforts to sustaining a smaller number of them properly. Neither MHRA nor MRC has published how the four new centres will relate to the seven pilot ones, including whether any pilot centres are expected to continue in parallel or wind down as the new awards begin.

The funding is not fully committed upfront

The programme's own materials describe each award as an initial three-year grant, with a further two years available only if a future government spending review allocates the budget for it. That is a meaningful caveat for any consortium planning around a five-year centre: the headline figure describes the programme's ambition, not a guarantee that funders can currently make for years four and five.

Timeline

• 22 September 2026 — funding call opens.
• 13 October 2026 — applicant webinar, hosted by MRC with MHRA participation.
• 12 January 2027, 4:00pm UK time — application deadline.

Frequently asked questions

What did MHRA announce?

On 22 September 2026, the MHRA, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Office for Life Sciences (OLS) opened a £20 million funding call to establish four new Centres of Excellence for Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSIs), bringing together academia, industry, healthcare and regulators to build the evidence, methods and tools for future regulatory decision-making.

How long is each centre funded for?

Awards run for an initial three years, with a further two years of funding contingent on future government spending allocations — up to five years in total, not a guaranteed five-year award from the outset.

Is this the UK's first CERSI programme?

No. It follows an earlier pilot: MHRA, MRC, OLS and Innovate UK funded seven CERSI pilots with about £6.2 million in one-year seed funding, selected from 17 networks that entered a discovery phase. This new £20 million call is a second, longer-funded phase — fewer centres, funded for longer — rather than a first-of-its-kind initiative.

How do I apply?

An applicant webinar is scheduled for 13 October 2026. Applications close 12 January 2027 at 4:00pm UK time.